Chef On/Chef Off video series: What Odette’s pastry chef Louisa Lim eats
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SINGAPORE – Light, feminine and delicate. That is how pastry chef Louisa Lim crafts her desserts at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Odette at National Gallery Singapore.
It echoes the ethos of Odette, named after the grandmother of Odette’s chef Julien Royer.
Lim, 32, says: “I view dessert as a piece of art, a continuation of the menu. While I think about the aesthetics and taste, I also consider the emotional aspect of things and how I want guests to feel after they eat the dessert.”
Lim and her intricate creations are showcased in the second episode of Chef On/Chef Off, a three-part video series by The Straits Times that features the food chefs make in their restaurants, as well as what they eat outside of work, on their days off.
The series kicked off on Sept 22 with Peruvian chef Daniel Chavez,
One of Lim’s desserts, Blanc, is inspired by the colour white.
Its ethereal elements – amazake pudding, Hokkaido milk ice cream, sake foam and dehydrated milk tuile – are meant to evoke “lightness”, says the Le Cordon Bleu Paris graduate, who was named Asia’s Best Pastry Chef at Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023.
Odette’s Snix dessert, a combination of Snickers and Twix.
PHOTO: ST VIDEO
Another of her signatures is the Snix dessert, inspired by chef Royer’s favourite Snickers chocolate bar. It involves a stack of thin wafers, salted caramel, housemade peanut butter, tonka and caramel ice cream, clothed in a warm dark chocolate sauce.
At home, she gravitates similarly towards light, delicate and comforting flavours that form the basis of her mother’s cooking.
Steamed fish with sour plum, ginger, tomatoes and preserved vegetables.
PHOTO: ST VIDEO
These home-cooked meals are usually composed of a soup, stir-fried vegetables, fried tofu and pork belly, and a steamed fish with sour plum, ginger, tomatoes and preserved vegetables.
Stir-fried spinach with prawns.
PHOTO: ST VIDEO
When she dines out, she enjoys the seafood dishes at Naked Finn at Gillman Barracks; Revolver in Tras Street for modern Indian cuisine; one-Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant Summer Pavilion at The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore for hearty Cantonese food and good soup; and Claudine in Harding Road for its French cuisine – a reminder of her time spent in France.
The final Chef On/Chef Off episode runs next week and goes behind the stove of chef Manjunath Mural of modern Indian restaurant Adda in Beach Road.
Info: Odette is at 01-04 National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew’s Road, open: noon to 1.15pm (last seating), 6.30 to 8.15pm (last seating), Tuesdays to Saturdays; closed on Sundays, Mondays and public holidays
